Backstage Pass Radio
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Backstage Pass Radio
S7: E3: Mandoki Soulmates - Journey of Musical Freedom & Innovation
Date: August 14th, 2024
Name of podcast: Backstage Pass Radio
S7: E3: Mandoki Soulmates (Tony Carey & Leslie Mandoki) - Journey of Musical Freedom & Innovation
SHOW SUMMARY:
What happens when a political refugee finds freedom through music and forms a supergroup with some of the world's most talented musicians? Join us on this episode of Backstage Pass Radio as we sit down with the legendary Leslie Mandoki and the versatile Tony Carey from Mandoki Soulmates. Leslie takes us on his remarkable journey from escaping the Iron Curtain to creating a band that merges British prog rock with American fusion jazz, all captured in their new analog album crafted as a response to today's global challenges. Tony, known for his work with Rainbow, shares his perspective on the band's rebellious spirit and their commitment to addressing societal issues through powerful, authentic music.
We dive deep into the analog world as Leslie and Tony recount the meticulous, hands-on process of recording their latest album. Discover the magic behind analog tape, the significance of capturing real-time performances, and the unique character it brings to their sound, contrasting sharply with digital precision. Gain insights into the history of Mandoki Soulmates, from its inception in opposition to communism to becoming a beacon of creative freedom. Leslie's emotional recount of his escape to a refugee camp and how it shaped their music is not to be missed.
This episode also tackles the broader impact of social media, the importance of individuality, and the enduring relevance of freedom in their work. Listen to personal stories from both musicians, including Tony's evolution within the band and Leslie's diverse career, from producing for legends to being a voice for peace. We wrap up with a celebration of their latest album, "A Memory of Our Future," and how music continues to unite people across generations and cultures. Don't miss this passionate, thought-provoking conversation that underscores the transformative power of music.
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Your Host,
Randy Hulsey
I am fortunate enough to have two world-class musicians on my show today. Hello, from Cypress Texas. It's Randy Hulsey with Backstage Pass Radio. Today I'm chatting with a world-class musician, producer and founding mastermind behind the intergenerational and international supergroup Mandoki Soulmates. As an added bonus, I will have another member who lends his keyboard and vocal magic to the band. I will introduce you to Leslie Mandoki and past guest on my show and friend, Tony Carey, and we'll do so right after this.
Speaker 2:This is Backstage Pass Radio, the podcast that's designed for the music junkie with a thirst for musical knowledge. Hi, this is Adam Gordon, and I want to thank you all for joining us today. Make sure you like, subscribe and turn alerts on for this and all upcoming podcasts. And now here's your host of Backstage Pass Radio, randy Halsey.
Speaker 1:Fellas, hello from Texas. How are you?
Speaker 3:Oh, thank you, Randy, for having Texas. How are you? Oh, thank you, Randy, for having us. It's wonderful and it's actually a podcast, but I see your wonderful collections of guitars.
Speaker 4:So I mentioned Aren't they great, aren't they great? A lot of acoustics.
Speaker 1:Man, if I could just learn to play any of them now, I would be great, right.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I was telling leslie before we got going. Tony, I think you were uh still trying to come into the show, but struggling with the technology, yeah, struggling, yeah but you, you made it, so that's a good thing.
Speaker 1:Um, I was telling, yep, yeah, in his age, you know, I know, I know he's an old guy, you know he has to relearn, he has to reacclimate to the technology. Yeah, you do. Well, tony, I'm glad you're here. Well, leslie, it's nice to, of course, finally meet you. Tony spoke to me, I guess post-interview that I had with him in the past and told me of his involvement with Mandoki Soulmates and we talked, I guess months and months ago, about maybe trying to get together and talk about the new stuff coming out in the summertime. So here we are. So it's nice to finally make your acquaintance and thank you for being here.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having us, because the new album is something very special for Tony and for all of us. And actually we are how should I say, we are kind of proud and to be privileged, through the love of our audience, to be in the position to make an album like this as an analog answer. In this crazy labyrinth of crisis, the compass is lost and we were just trying to repaint that black span on our cover to become white again, and this album was actually born in a way that we were telling myself and all the other showmates members and we felt this division and this and all the other showmates members, and we felt this division and this crisis all over and the multiple crises and we thought, okay, the old rebels, we have to give an answer. And we thought, okay, we'll write those songs. Tony came up actually and he said just once it was just Tony Ryan. He said just once, you know, he was just turning around and said let's see, I hate you. And I went, I really hate you. And I said what's up? And he said, yeah, well, the new songs are something so young Normally one writes these kind of songs, you know, when you were 23 or 25.
Speaker 3:And so the old hippies are back and we are just kind of live up to this rebellion, you know, and to say, hey, we are really having the torch in our hand to light up the end of this dark tunnel where we all got in, and so that's what we're trying to do. So thank you for having us and having a little chat about it. I just heard that our audience are kind of music junkies. So thank you for being a music junkie, because that's the greatest drug what you can ever imagine is music. And unlikely to a happy boy, tony Carey and you, randy, that you guys were born and raised in freedom. I was born and raised behind an iron curtain and music in America was meaning us freedom, put in a simple word, and we also wrote a couple of songs about freedom in this record.
Speaker 4:Well, it's all your records. You're always writing that, leslie, all your records are another chapter of that story. It's a long story which I'll let Leslie tell you, but he's a political refugee and he came over, escaped through a tunnel. He could make a movie out of it, his journey. And how old were you? 22-something, I was 22., 22, so 50 years ago and discovered post-war Germany, which was pretty free. And he didn't grow up in post-war America, which is really free, yeah, but he got halfway there.
Speaker 1:Well, I was reading something about your story there, leslie. Of course it was at the 50,000 foot level and as I was going through, and Tony told me too, by the way, he said, make sure you do your homework. And I said I always do my homework on my guests. So I was reading up on you, leslie, and I was reading about you know your history. And I said, wow, that could be a whole, that could be a whole show conversation in and of itself. So you know, maybe we'll have to do a part two to this and you can. You can go in depth. Maybe we'll have to do a part two to this and you can go in depth. I would love to hear that story because we're allotted so many freedoms. As Tony could tell you, being American-born, we sometimes take freedom for granted, right, and it's neat to hear those? It's never for granted.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's good to hear those stories. It humbles us to hear those stories of people that didn't come from those same freedoms Right, and I think it puts things into perspective when we just have to stop and remember that freedom is not always free, right and right, and we can't take it for granted. It's a very special thing, right, yeah, yeah, yeah Well, tony, hello, friend, it's good to see you again, man. Hey, buddy, it's great to see you. Thank you for making you know. You kind of were the culprit of making all this happen. Of course, you put me in touch with Lucas, and Lucas did his magic to get Leslie on the show.
Speaker 4:So thank you for that, and I think you got better looking since the last time I saw you too, man, or what do you know? I'm having a bad hair day, but I don't know. Is that possible? You?
Speaker 1:tell me, you tell me.
Speaker 4:One of the first things I said to Marion when I met her and this was in 35, up to 40 years ago now I said I can't wait for tomorrow. She said why not? I said because I get better looking every day.
Speaker 1:You know what I say, tony? I tell my wife. I said you know, I set my alarm clock an hour earlier to wake up today. She said why would you do that? I said because I get to spend one more hour with myself today. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah for us narcissist guys, right yeah, so you did.
Speaker 4:You did your homework and you listened to the tracks I did, I actually I listened to some stuff huh, I, I loved it.
Speaker 1:I listened to it actually I've listened to front to back twice and started the third time and, yeah, great stuff and we'll, we'll definitely dive into, uh, all things about the album and and I see you have some vinyl, so I want to talk to you about the vinyl there, but are both of you guys calling in from home and from Germany today, is that?
Speaker 4:where you are. Yeah, he's down in Bavaria, by the, by the Alps, uh, where I also lived in the same town he lives in for 20 years. I'm up by Frankfurt, in the middle of the country. Yeah, okay, but you know we've got technology there you go.
Speaker 1:And cell phones, and cell phones. Well, yours looks a little behind the time there, I'll have to say, tony, well, no, it's an updated version.
Speaker 4:It's nearly got a colored screen. This is this, is it?
Speaker 1:this is not the original so so nokia nokia 1030 okay, and are you able to actually text on this thing now? Is this a text, you know?
Speaker 4:it's like donna, it's like stone age texting. You go through it, you know all the things till you find it. Yeah, but yeah, okay, all right, well, I do tell people. I do tell people, though don't text me and make me text you back.
Speaker 1:I said mail me, you know I've tried to respect that of you over time. You told me that early on you you remember telling me. Here's my phone number. If you, if you annoy me, I'll delete you. And and luckily I I don't think I've annoyed you yet because I'm still able to contact you. But I I know I love to respect the wishes of emails, just easier sometime. And anyway, let's talk about Mandoki soulmates. The group formed what 20, 22, 22 years ago in 92, 30 years ago, 30 years.
Speaker 1:So it was before 1992 then, or was that 30 years? I'll see, yeah you're right thank you thank you, man. I I failed math class. There you go so it's okay.
Speaker 3:30 years.
Speaker 1:That's why I have smart guys like tony on my show to correct me every time I'm wrong. Right, every single time, every single time. So so 30 years ago, leslie, where did the uh, the whole idea for mandoki soulmates come from? From you? Where did you conjure this thought up from?
Speaker 3:I'm trying to make it very simple for you. It was I was a teenager and uh, and we were in a oppositional movement against communism, against the Russian occupation, and we were playing a kind of melted together the values of the British program, like Jeddowtow, and the American fusion jazz, like Return to Forever, weather Report, miles Davis, mahavishnu Orchestra, brecker Brothers and so on, and on the English side, like yes and all these, the early Genesis, and my teenage band called Jam. We played that kind of music. And then I escaped, together with a dear friend of mine who was a cartoonist, and so we got into the refugee camp and the CIA officer was asking us guys, I really understand that you guys escaped communism and it was dangerous. You almost got killed and all the rest of it. But tell me because I would like to make a note in your application form of political asylum, what the hell are you going to do now in the free world? So I said I would like to. You know, just start with the band Ian Anderson from Chattatown and Jack Bruce from Green and Ali Mawla on the guitars.
Speaker 3:It was 1975, in the refugee camp. So the CIA officer was looking at me and said you must be totally crazy. He turns to Gabor and said and you, young boy, if your friend is that crazy, what the hell are you doing? I said nothing here. Actually, in Europe I'm going to Hollywood, you know, and I'm a cartoonist, you know. I'm going to start a film studio, you know, because I have some ideas. So his first big thing was the Simpsons and the second was Rugrats. So he has two stars Rugrats, rugrats, yeah, red, red, yeah. So that's actually the idea of Soulmates was born, or put this way on Saint, at first in a refugee camp and as about 10 years ago, as the first German channel was making the documentary about the Soulmates, then they went to the refugee camp and they filmed that document where it's saying you know soulmates. Then they went to the refugee camp and they filmed that document. And where is it? You know there's 75, yines, jethro Tull, jack Booth of Cream and Elio. They were just on the absolute peak of the character. Make long story short.
Speaker 3:This was the idea, and the idea is still the same to merge the lyrical, intellectual, political aspects of British prog rock with the complexity of the British prog rock compositions, but to take the soloistical virtuosity, the soloistical brilliance of the American fusion jazz and to create something new out of that.
Speaker 3:And that's what we're doing, and we are extremely pleased to have it. The first time since we released the record in America, we're doing, and uh, that you know we are extremely pleased and happy that first time, and uh, since when we released the record in america, sure, so we just pulled back to america what is actually true american, uh, to do this and uh, and the new album is just, uh, probably the best. What we've done and that's very, very special, is this this album is analog, purely analog. It's a handwritten love letter to our audience and it's not a text message. That's maybe, regarding the form of the recording, is an important message that people, if you really listen to this, have a joyful moment. Even on a smaller speaker of a smartphone, you can hear the difference. Much is alive, uh, how warmed, uh, and then how you know, the balance between highs and mids and lows are so perfect, like, like it's just human, like a handwritten love letter to the listeners out there that might just be your, your daily listeners of music.
Speaker 1:They're not recording artists, they're not into the technology of recording. Talk a little bit about analog recording and the in the sound of analog versus digital, because I think we're in the digital world now and everybody thinks that, oh, digital, we got to, everything's got to be digital. But talk from your seat about analog recording and what the difference is.
Speaker 3:Actually we are working in our studio's complex since ages only digital but in a basement. I was just hiding my beautiful analog machines.
Speaker 4:Studer A800, 24-track 2-inch tape.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly. And so actually it was Tony the one who came up and asked Leslie, you're never selling anything. You know, I'm not a kind of, I'm never into money or financial things. I'm not interested in it. So Tony was just asking. We said do you still have this Tudor A800 MK2? So of course I have it. So we just put it into our studio elevator and we brought it up and we just called the old engineers you know they're retired, let's line up the machine and let's try it. You know and know for our audience.
Speaker 3:I mean, what is the real difference? The real difference are actually based on two different issues. The one is the whole entire art is taking place during the recording and not at the post-production. Nowadays, pop music gets created by the post-production, so that you have about 25 different guitar solos and you can chop it and edit and we call it this whole editing process, comping, and you just make a compilation out of 25 guitar solos and you make out of one.
Speaker 3:And when you record analog, then the whole process takes place while you're recording, same as when you write a hands-free love letter it takes place while you're writing it and you cannot correct it because you have to rewrite the whole thing.
Speaker 3:So this is the same with us, you know. So if you do something, which we don't like, if you make a mistake, you have to do the whole thing again. That magic, this magical moment that everything is created while the recording is taking place, and plus, the sound is different. What is the difference? You know, our ears are analog and the warmth in the middle, you know, and the natural sounds of the highs and you know this dry lows, I mean, this is different, as in digital, because the tape compression gives us a human sound aesthetic, may I say, and the sound aesthetic of the humanity and the way as we are listening to this. It gives us a total different experience to listen to music, and even the smallest little earplug, or however you listen to your music, or a Bluetooth speaker or a big home stereo, doesn't matter, it sounds different, it sounds more human and you will love it.
Speaker 1:Do you still track analog the same way you would track digital, where the guitar player would play his track, or is it the whole band together? You can still track it out individually 50-50.
Speaker 4:I mean, you have to have a bottom track, okay, and we don't have 17 guys in the room doing it on the bottom track.
Speaker 1:So when you say you have to redo, like if you make a mistake you just go back and punch in just like you would do with regular digital recording Okay, gotcha, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay, but the difference is that you don't have countless space to record onto.
Speaker 1:Right, you're limited by the tape, right yeah.
Speaker 4:Well, you've got to make some decisions, and that's the old workflow. I spent 25 years cutting tape. I had two studers linked together, 48 tracks, 46, actually, because this is nerdy technical stuff. This is nerdy stuff so I won't talk about it. But I spent so long cutting tape and lifting these heavy tape boxes and trying to be careful how many times I played them, because they go over the heads, the playhead on the machine, and they deteriorate and all that.
Speaker 4:This workflow is a completely different thing than mouse clicks. As far as recording analog, you use really, really high-end stuff. That means microphones, microphone preamps, a recording console. That's the first thing you do. So it's got to go in perfect. Leslie meant that when he was talking about post-production before. Of course, uh, it's it to go in perfect. Leslie meant that when he was talking about post-production before. Of course it's garbage in, garbage out. It can be. Some digital stuff is great, of course, sure, but if you use really high-end preamps, compressors, equalization, good microphones, a good desk, wonderful machine, you're halfway there, the sound's already there.
Speaker 4:Leslie mentioned the word tape compression. That's kind of nerdy, but what that means is the tapes. It's saturation. The tape. When you run it hot at a high level. It does something wonderful to the signal and it's kind of a harmonic distortion. It's kind of like distortion but's kind of like distortion but really pleasing distortion. It's really musical and in your ear loves it. And uh, digital does not distort. It clips and it sounds horrible. Yeah, it's either completely clean or or ruined. You know, and that's what leslie meant by by tape compression.
Speaker 1:That's that does this process so it, so it sounds like it's more important when you're recording analog that and that's what Leslie meant by tape compression. That's this process. So it sounds like it's more important when you're recording analog that you're using all of the right and best equipment up front, whereas you in digital it can be like garbage recorded digitally, but you can go in and shape that and make it sound however you want.
Speaker 4:You can replace badly recorded drums with perfect drum samples. You know, you know what you know perfectly on time and everything like that right, absolutely, you know, right until you can line things up into the grid as we say, so of course, yeah, but it's very important that you record it, because not only the good microphone is where you put the microphone, because if you move it two or three inches away from the guitar, it sounds different. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And from a monetary perspective. Yeah, we're going down a technical rabbit hole, but that's great. It's a great conversation and I love it. And there's the gearheads out there that listen to my show worldwide. That are artists. Right, they love this kind of talk. But is it more costly to record in analog versus digital? I?
Speaker 4:have to ask Leslie. I mean, acquiring the equipment costs a fortune. Oh, of course. Yeah, leslie. Does it cost more to record analog?
Speaker 3:Of course I mean the tape. It's just the tapes. You know, this is just 500 bucks.
Speaker 1:So you can actually still like that's still a thing. You can actually go out somewhere and buy tape, right that's not a lost art right. Is what you're saying Okay, no, all right, no, no, no no, it's not a lost art.
Speaker 3:I mean you can go buy cassettes you know, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay, you can go by Cassettes. Yeah, okay, fair enough, I just made for Tony another day a cassette. I said, tony, I really love you. You're such a great boy. You are like an old Bordeaux red vine. You get greater and greater and greater every year. I saw I was sending you that. Yeah, I'm not kidding about this. It's really the love of music, the love of the spirit makes us so happy to record analog, because this is a different vibe. You know, all of a sudden the red light goes on in the recording studio. You know, and you have that kind of positive. You know, inspiration this limitation is an inspiration at the same time. But you have that you can stack and stack and stack, stone by stone, everything on a hard disk. So, but you really kind of individual. It's just really great.
Speaker 1:How do you like you record on the tape. How do you? You know, like in digital, we can take a copy of and I do this with my, with my recordings of my shows, my interviews, right, I'll take it. It goes on hard drive, of course, and then I replicate that up to the cloud, where it's saved, and then I put it over on USB. So I've got like five copies of this show, right? How does that work with tape? Can you basically copy tape to tape for redundancy purposes?
Speaker 4:Okay, you can, but we don't. And one thing is to use slave tapes. This is really nerdy, but I'll just tell you. You don't have to use just one tape. And, uh, if, if you preserve the original recording that you have and put it, put it to the side and make a mix of it on two tracks of a new tape, you have 22 more tracks, okay, and you can add to it. And then in the end you link everything up, it's all synced together and you and you have a little more option. Okay, that's, uh, it's. It's an amazing workflow. It's like working on a model t for it. I mean, it's, it's very hands-on. Sure you know they actually use razor blades to cut the tape, of course like physically.
Speaker 4:There's two reasons why razor blades are in studios, and one of them is to cut tape we won't talk about the other one.
Speaker 1:Right? You'd have to be an old school guy like you to even know what you're referring to there. Right? That's right like now.
Speaker 4:You're dating yourself back to the rainbow days.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, yeah, uh. Well, tony, so you, you joined the group back in. Was it february of 21, is that?
Speaker 4:that, no, about 20 years ago. Really, I've been doing soulmate shows for about 20 years now. Sure, sure.
Speaker 1:Okay, Well, I got some vile information from the internet then, oh yeah you did Okay.
Speaker 4:Well, it's good to know. Everything on the internet is usually true. I'm shocked.
Speaker 1:Well, unless you find out different, right, unless you find out the truth, it's all true anyway.
Speaker 4:Well no, and I mean did let go ahead, finish your thought my role did change, though, because we had, uh, more singers and we're losing singers, like faster than than like dropping like flies. We had, uh, chris thompson, okay, like the voice of rock, from man for Man's Earth Band. We had Bobby Kimball from Toto. We've had Greg Lake sang with us, jack Bruce sang with us, jack Bruce, yeah, and the people die. And Chris retired. Bobby has got really serious health problems. He can't work anymore by the Kimbo. So my front man role it increased dramatically. It's like every tour I had more to do, as it were, and in the beginning Leslie had about 19 keyboard players and now he's only got one plus me. Okay, and I only play Hammond. And I got one of these geeks to play all the, all the, the big rig stuff and gives me a lot of freedom. I just play what I want and just play hammond. So my role has changed in the in the last 20 years well, yeah, so it's.
Speaker 1:So it sounds like you're doing. Yeah, so it sounds like you're doing a, a lot more singing, and I'm sure that Leslie's compensating you for the more work that you're doing now, right?
Speaker 3:No, he doesn't pay me. Oh, he doesn't pay you.
Speaker 1:No, I don't, no no, no, no, no, no. You're cheap. See, I always knew it, you were a cheap guy, man yeah.
Speaker 4:Gosh dang it. I don't charge brands.
Speaker 1:Come on, man, right? Well, listen, I'm glad that you set me right. Like I've always said this about my show, I go out and I certainly do do my homework. I do a lot of research on the people that I bring on to my shows, but sometimes the information is just vile, it's not right. But I'm a humble guy and I love to be corrected on my show because it's all about getting the right information out to the people that listen, right, and the people that go and they they read the same articles that I go out and read. Like we're all privy to the same information on the Internet. They're just reading the wrong shit too out there at the end of the day, right? So here the record gets set straight. So I'm I'm certainly OK with that. Here the record gets set straight, so I'm certainly okay with that. But when you kind of joined into Mandoki Soulmates, where were you musically? Because you know you went from doing your own solo stuff and Rainbow and Planet P Project, where were you musically?
Speaker 4:They're all different, and I also did three or four country records. I did electro pop records, like you could, craft work or everything. So I was where I've always been musically is, which is everywhere. Okay, I mean, uh, completely unrestrained, I play what I feel like playing. So I fit right in because, uh, we got DiMeola, we got Mike Stern on guitar, we got guys burning the place up, sure, randy Brecker on trumpet, richard Bona on bass that's the best in the world for me. And we just got to record this record with Simon Phillips who played with the who, yep, and with Toto and all that. I mean these are just magical people. So I fit right in, yeah, right on, and the songs are just songs. I mean I'll sing anything, you know. I mean I've got a hobby project I haven't released yet. I'm doing like Frank Sinatra covers, you know, with an orchestra.
Speaker 1:Well, that's been in the works for some time now, has it not? I've told you about that before. Yeah, I mean, we talked about five years, yeah, um, yeah, so, uh, are you further along with that, or is it just still kind?
Speaker 4:of work in progress. No, it's kind of tabled for the moment, but I'll come back to it. Okay, the world does. The world doesn't need another crooner. But it is good, but the world doesn't need another crooner yeah, well, how did you get introduced to leslie?
Speaker 1:he seems like a wonderful guy just in the short time that I've been on on the air with him here. How did you get introduced to? And his name's Peter.
Speaker 4:Mafai. You will not have heard of him, but we have a mutual friend and Leslie, his neighbor, lives next door to him and I was Peter's producer in the 80s, so it was kind of natural that everybody knew everybody and got together. And then it was also kind of inevitable that Leslie would ask me hey, you want to come do a soulmate show? 20 years ago I said yeah, sure, and I had a lot less to do because we had Chris Thompson, bobby Kimball, all the vocalists, chaka Khan, a spice girl, sure, and you know me, yeah.
Speaker 3:And Tony now has to work really hard.
Speaker 4:I got to work so hard for no remuneration, no money.
Speaker 1:That keeps Tony young yeah that just keeps Tony young. That's all it's doing, yeah.
Speaker 3:Because, you know, we have all these wonderful soloists like Ellie Moore, like Mike Sherwood, randy Brackett, john Hollywood, super Tramp, bill Evans, richard Borner, and then, all of a sudden, now that we had a tour two years ago, tony and myself, we just found ourselves in the studio. We said wow, only two of us are singing. So we got used to it. You know all the Bobby Cumbles and Chris Thompson's around, greg died, greg died, jack died, a couple guys retired.
Speaker 4:we were doing a four hour show and like for 40,000, 50,000 people in Budapest and we're singing this whole thing. Just me and Leslie were singing everything, so actually, we had so much fun, it was so joyful.
Speaker 3:By the way, that's the way how Chaka Khan was showing us some years ago. We were just about recording and we were just going down to the lake and we had a late lunch or something. It was kind of 5 o'clock in the afternoon, so really late, and they were just kidding about. You know that we are a boy group. And then I think Jack Bruce was coming up and said actually we are a boy group, we should have a girl singing with us. And then we're this traditional Bavarian beer mats, you know, on the table and we had all our sharpies, of course, because and so they said, okay, you know what, guys, everybody's just hiding it and write one name on a beer mat. You know who should be the girl in the boy group, and so put it down and I will count in and three, four, and we just turn back, we flip it back and we see what is in the beer mat.
Speaker 3:I was looking around and seven guys around the table like you know, steve Lucas or Enas, and all of the beer mats was one named Chaka Khan. I called Chaka Khan Really. So I called Chaka a little later and I woke her up in Los Angeles and I said what's happening? I mean, I was telling her the story. You know all the beer mats. You know, and every beer mats were just your name. And I said, all right, they're not coming. So the next day she came. So that's how she became the girl in the boy group Wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a cool story. She was the common denominator on the beer mats.
Speaker 4:That's very cool. Amazing, amazing presence, amazing presence, wow, wow.
Speaker 1:Well, Leslie, did you make Tony audition? Did he have to audition for you guys, or did?
Speaker 3:you just let him in by default. I snuck in. You know, he's a genius. I mean, Tony's a genius, yeah, he's such a musical person and he is such a lovely guy, and so it was very simple. You know, in a way, Tony, I mean he couldn't know that, but in a way, as I met him first, I'm just going to a huge venue for about 14,000 people at the early afternoon, about 2 o'clock pm, because my friend, our mutual friend, Peter Maffay, was just making a soundcheck there and I was just going to the FOH and sat down and was just listening to the soundcheck and Tony was going to the Hammond.
Speaker 3:He played wonderfully. He took the acoustic guitar as an ovation and it was very fashionable to have an ovation back then and then he was singing and Peter was making some interviews. So Tony was just doing a blues, he was playing himself, and I said wow. So I went back and just said hey, don't you want to play with us? I'm known in this country like a colored dog. So we knew, of course, who was this crazy refugee, Leslie Madogia. Who was this crazy refugee, Leslie Madugi, who was producing all this music with Phil Collins and Bly the Richie and all this. And so then we just, you know, became friends, and then it was a wonderful friendship, you know, just great, great. I mean it's wonderful to have such a great personality, and not only a great musician but also somehow heart and soul of the band as well.
Speaker 4:Sure, we're going to be the last two standing, me and you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you all have like a side wager on that or anything?
Speaker 4:Not so much, not so much. But what we do talk about is we do a club tour Like it's a duet.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, for sure that, that, that, that would be perfect.
Speaker 4:Yeah, first we gotta get, first we gotta get old. Yeah, when we're old.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but one day when we get old. So there you go, you haven't. You haven't met the prereqs yet. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1:No, leslie, you know I, I uh not to sound funny, but I agree with you. You know I I've done a lot of interviews and I've done them with local artists. I've done them with regional guys. I've done them with guys like yourselves. Uh, you know world renowned musicians and some of those interviews are, you know, you have a great interview. There's nothing wrong with the interview. But you either make a connection with people or you kind of don't right. And Tony was one of those guys for me and he may not reciprocate the same sentiment, I don't know. I felt connected to Tony, like he was a warm guy and was very generous with his time and telling his story. So I agree with you there. It's hard to not like Tony. Tony, you can pay me later, by the way.
Speaker 4:Just send me a check is in the mail. I was going to say what's all this hype that caused me here?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know. Your head looked like it swelled up on the camera a little bit there for just a second right.
Speaker 3:I could feel it, I think it's time that we talk to marion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah well, yeah, we'll get a. We'll probably get a different story from her, but let's just go with my story for now and let tony feel good about himself for a few minutes. But, leslie, so you've worked, you know, musical director, uh, for clients like audi and disney I was reading up on you there and you've worked, you know, as a producer for some of the biggest names in the game the Lionel Richies and the Phil Collins of the world. And, of course, you do lots of things with Mandoki, soulmates of all your amazing talents. Which of the talents do you feel like? And it's probably you calling your babies ugly. One of the babies ugly, but is there one that fulfills you more than the others, or are they all kind of equals to you?
Speaker 3:Well, you know, it keeps me young, these old, extremely different challenges. You know like to write the biggest soccer anthems. You know, like to write bigger soccer anthems, you know, for leading soccer team here, FC Bayern, which is the legendary European soccer team among Real Madrid and the Brits. So this is somehow to create the sound aesthetic for for electromobility, you know. Or or also the normal car, because just you push the start button and the dookie comes out. Everything is a kind of joyful moment, and that tour for Disney, and all this. And, of course, I always try to do my very best to create a musical and artistical added value for artists who are just giving me their faith, coming and trusting. But the real thing is Madugi Soma. This is different, because that's what my life is all about. This is pure expression. This is so honest, so naked, as honest and naked artistically as it can be. And, yes, well, we're doing great in all these different fields of music, but I think nothing is more important artistically in my life than Madhuki solos. Yeah, so, because this is, this is what what I've been living for, Sure, and and and and all, all everything I'll be doing, I'm always doing it with great conviction and great focus and I'm thankful that I'm I'm, I'm needed all, all in this territories of music, but I'm needed all in this territories of music.
Speaker 3:But I don't do anything else than music for my life. But but uh, actually I was trying. Actually my plan as a little boy was to became a painter. So I still do my covers. And then another dream was that I became a poet. That's just, of course. As a lyricist and songwriter I live up to that dream a little, but music is my first love. I'm awfully thankful to the audience that they're giving us a chance to do what we do. And this is just at the very moment as Tony and myself we just became 50 years old now, Am I right Tony? Well, he's 48.
Speaker 1:48. Okay, 48. Yeah, he just had a birthday, so it's 48, yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 4:We're both born in 1953, but he's older than me, right, right yeah, my birthday's in October, his mom's in January.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely, my birthday's in October, his job is in January. Yeah, absolutely. And so you know, this album is also a little bit payback time to our audience. Say thank you for it.
Speaker 3:And now, because the world turned to be a mess, you know, the world turned upside down down and actually Tony and myself, we're this lucky generation, that kind of. We enjoyed the 90s, you know. Even Europe became free. The Berlin Wall came down, you know, we thought, okay, paradise is coming to Europe.
Speaker 3:And we know, you know, my generation really messed it up in a way, because it could have been a paradise easily and we had all the chances, but unfortunately we invited greediness against humanity into the center of the society and, as you see, we have not learned the lesson regarding war. You know, and Tony and myself we are coming from this anti war generation that we said, okay, let's make love, not war type of thing, and let's create the music against the war and don't kill people, and so on. So you have all this idealistic generation and very unfortunately, you know, in Europe we have war again. So, yeah, which is awful, it's terrible, people are dying, and so we had to write songs against that. So so we have to rise our voice again, like we did in our young years. So so the old tip is our back end, and the same. We see the same, you know, because freedom is not for granted, as we know as we learned in a hard way and so well.
Speaker 1:It's nice to hear that groups like yourself are still have a positive message in the forefront, Right, Because so much of the music that we hear these days has negative connotations, and not all of it.
Speaker 4:Negative or ambivalent. I mean, you know, a lot of stuff's negative and a lot of stuff's just plain boring. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't go left, doesn't go right, doesn't go down the middle, it's just nothing, it's just noise. Yeah, I keep up with Spotify, I keep up with new stuff and you know, and very rarely do I hear anything like the first time I heard Pink Floyd, the first time I heard the who or Bruce Springsteen, or you know those moments I mean, what do you got today? And Bob Dylan, I don't really care. I mean I like punk, I like the Ramones, I like the Clash. But I'm a lyrics guy. It's always the lyric and if I hear a bad lyric or a cliche lyric, I turn it off, I change the station. Yeah, and that's so important to have a lyrical message behind what you're doing. And these lyrics are Leslie's Yep. Through my filter I put them into song form a little bit. That's kind of our, the way we are working, developed.
Speaker 4:He gives me, he'll give me 20 pages of poetry and says okay, and you know give me a song out of that yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and I'll go down to the studio, we'll spend a couple days, know, hashing it out line by line, and then at the end we'll, you know there are Leslie's lyrics and they are old hippie, you know old rebel, peace and love. I think he's a communist, all this stuff, but to me that's so important.
Speaker 3:Tony, you never ever met a guy who's more anti-communist than me. I'm just against greediness.
Speaker 4:Right yeah.
Speaker 1:We talked a little bit about. You know Leslie's upbringing and post-war, pre-war, and you know freedoms and that type of thing, and there are so many artists over the years that have moved from the United States, the home of the free right, and you move to a foreign country, like you did in Europe and specific to you know specifically Germany. What was the draw for you to leave, to vacate the United States and all the freedoms that we had and move to a foreign country? Was it the female counterpart there or was it something totally different for you?
Speaker 4:No, I tell you what I'm kind of Leslie's the guy that always has the big picture. You know, I'm not Leslie's the macro, I'm the micro. We've got every detail in this, he's got the plan. I depend on him for that because I couldn't do it. So as we recorded, with schedule, with getting it mixed, getting it done, actually doing the work, promoting that's Leslie's thing.
Speaker 4:I came over all accidents. You know. I met Richie Blackmore. It was a complete accident. We toured through Europe and I met another guy here who sent me a telegram at my dad's house in 1978. Can I come over and play piano on a record which I did and I never went back, and that was 46 years ago Because right after that I met a guy who was willing to let me use his recording studio 24 hours a day and I had seven chart singles and sold a lot of records in America and all produced in Germany. I was never I haven't lived in had a address in America since 1978. But I go, really. I go where the wind blows me, but I have to say the wind always blows me in a nice place. Yeah, I mean, I might have been nasty in my last life, but in this one. I'm being rewarded. I tell you, the universe loves me. I don't know what it is.
Speaker 1:Well, I know you've been over there many years and now you've got grown children that all grew up and raised in Germany Grandchildren, yes, of course, of course, of course. Well, you guys correct me where I'm wrong here, because I've been wrong twice already and I hate to keep being wrong In your whole life. In my whole life, yeah, that's just yeah. So you know, everybody needs to be wrong a couple of times in their life, and today I've been wrong a couple of times. But over the years Mandoki Soulmates have released at least a dozen records, correct. And then the new LP that's out A Memory of Our Future was just released this year. Tony, for those that won't have the visual, but Tony's holding up the vinyl of the latest release and we'll talk a little bit about how we get our hands on that record here shortly. But congrats on the release to both of you guys. I know it's exciting, especially Leslie. You know you seem really pumped about this being a thank you to the fans out there, right? So congrats on this latest release for you guys.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much. It was May 10, and thank you so much, and you can catch us anywhere on all the streaming services, but of course we release also double vinyl and the CD, so you find us in every format and, of course, in Amazon and in.
Speaker 1:America. Okay, and this is a 12-song LP for you guys, correct? There's 12 songs on the new record. Yeah, but that's 80 minutes 80 minutes. They're long, they're long, they're marathon.
Speaker 4:They're long.
Speaker 1:They're marathon. They're the Inigana De Vida songs. Right, they are.
Speaker 4:In fact, there's four sides and each side has three songs on it. I'm looking at it right now.
Speaker 1:So if you put the vinyl on there, they're about this wide a piece, right, Tony yeah?
Speaker 4:No man, it's dense man, it is dense. It's a long record. I'm happy that it fit and was mastered to sound great at this length. It's a long record. I mean the A-side. I'll just finish that thought. The A-side is 17. The A-side has got 22 minutes on the side. It's about as much as you can put on vinyl and still have fidelity. Of course it's a the side. It's as much as you can put on vinyl, wow, and still have fidelity, you know. So Of course it's a long record.
Speaker 1:Do you lose fidelity, like the more you try to stuff onto vinyl? Is that?
Speaker 4:You can't physically put more than, unless it's an audio book, you know, or a comedy record Smaller format Okay.
Speaker 4:Then you can go 30 minutes aside pretty easily. Then you can go 30 minutes aside pretty easily but you can't put more than ideally 19, 20 minutes of music on it because there's not enough room for the grooves. When it's a lot of bass notes in it, the grooves are wider and deeper and you jam them all together and it won't be loud enough and it won't have the fidelity. So you really have to be aware A CD is 80 minutes. You can fit on a CD and the fidelity is the same from the beginning to the end. You've got to really be aware of what you're doing with vinyl, because an ideal record length would be about a 40 to 44 minute record. That's about ideal.
Speaker 1:You know that's interesting information, you know, even to the non-techies out there that just put a record on or a CD in the player, or however they consume music. But it's cool to hear the, the capabilities and, uh, the ceilings, so to speak, that you can't do this or else, like you know, we've listened to records all of our lives and I bet you, 95 of my listeners have never given that a second thought like the, the whole.
Speaker 4:Of course you know what I mean like it's kind of cool to know that I engineer my own records and I've engineered records for other people.
Speaker 4:I mean, I'm, you know, I can do that and I have a admittedly self-taught, but taught by masters, by really really good people, in fact, the guy that mastered this is a fun fact, I suggested Sterling Sound in New York to Leslie and the guy that mastered the Soulmates record mastered A Fine Fine Day for me. The same guy really. 40 years later and Sterling Sound is the mastering gold standard, as it were. Leslie flew over with magnetic tape, you know, don't put us in the x-ray and all that, the whole business, sure, and and and got it mastered and mastering, mastering being the final stage of, for just the final touch-up sonically before it gets pressed. So anyway, I'm an engineer, I love that geeky stuff. I'm a a complete nerd, yeah, but I don't think people really bother to think about it. I don't know much about how oil tankers work, you know? Sure, I mean, I never thought about it.
Speaker 3:Well, and if you know about rocket science.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I know about rocket science. Yeah, I know a lot about rocket science.
Speaker 1:Well, and A Fine Fine Day is a fine fine song. It's one of my favorite songs. Oh cool, you know, and I think I told you on the first, you know the first time, tony, that you and I talked, that the first time that I had exposure to you, you were opening up for Night Ranger at the Lake Charles Civic Center 1985, I believe, planet P 84. Okay and yeah, that's the first time that I was exposed to you and I love that song.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was me, right up, you know, right up, you know, with the laser pointing in your eyes. So, yeah, so there was the 12 song LP. There was a clip I wanted to play, a clip of the song called Devil's Encyclopedia, which I really liked off the record. I'll share a small clip of that with the, with the listeners, and then we'll come back and chat about the song and the record a little bit more. Fair enough, yeah absolutely.
Speaker 5:We don't listen when we're here. Years of living in the grip of fear, all this blood for nothing, looking, but we're not seeing the land it shakes and shatters when nature lies in tatters. The planet's lasted long enough, so just keep on keeping on. Social media becomes a devil's encyclopedia. Social media becomes a devil's encyclopedia.
Speaker 1:That was a song called Devil's Encyclopedia, off the 2024 LP release entitled A Memory of Our Future. A wonderful song and nice listen, guys. Like I told you before, I've listened to the whole record front to back multiple times. This one stuck out to me. Great job, man.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you so much. What a wonderful, tasteful hammer playing by Tony. It's just just just. Let me state this I mean, if you're listening to this album and when you say, okay, this song sticks out, have a listen. How tasteful. Because the most important thing for a musician taste, you know, we can all play fast, this is not. You know, we can all play virtuoso and brilliant and all this, but let him play tasteful, and that's what his this song is about. That everybody was playing so emotionally about, because it's a peace song actually. So it's a horrible war. We don't, we just can't stand to see people dying that's that, ian anderson.
Speaker 4:Ian anderson knocks me out on devil's encyclopedia. He really, it's really jethro, tell the hell out of it. He's really got that typical, unmistakable toe sound and he's just, you know, I'll dare and say it for his age, he's like knocking it out of the park and he's killing it. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, leslie paid you a nice compliment on the Hammond too. It's like I wanted to stop Leslie and say, look, this is too much telling Tony how great he is. I mean, we're going to have to give this guy medication after the show to get that swelling to go down Pretty soon.
Speaker 4:he's going to offer me money. Where does it end?
Speaker 1:I don't know, I don't know. You should be thankful you came on this show today. Tony, you should feel great about yourself when you leave here. Well, there's a lyric in there social media becomes the devil's encyclopedia. Can you guys speak to that?
Speaker 3:Well, I was in a road economy forum in Davos. If it maybe rings a bell to you, this is the largest get-together of people that are just trying to find new technologies and to finance it. It's a long, long, long time ago. There was a young fellow there and I was there with a dear friend of mine, paolo Coelho. He just got the Nobel Ritual Prize that year and that period of time, and so Mr Zuckerberg was explaining that he's just having an idea later become Facebook.
Speaker 3:And someone was just coming up to Apollo Cohen and myself. They asked both of us what do we think about that? And I said no, no, no. We both said the humanity of mankind, we are protecting our private intimacy, so it's never going to work. So we were absolutely rough, of course, and now we see what happened with social media, how far it got. You know how much it spoils the society in terms of creating this division within families, within groups, within friends and companies and groups in any shape and form, and the whole society is living in this division, and even political too, correct.
Speaker 4:Especially politically, Gosh dang. There's so much misinformation and so many bots and there's so much bullshit on. I mean, I've never seen TikTok. As you say, folks, if you're only listening, I'm holding up my Nokia 1995 telephone. It's not a smartphone, I won't have it. And I think social media is only good for it's good for plugging a product 100%, To be blunt about it. Yeah, you know. Be blunt about it, yeah, you know. But other than that, I mean starting with that trend when it started, of taking pictures of your food, you know I'm posting it. I mean, come on, who gives a shit right? Who gives a shit man? Come on, man, Leave me alone with your food. And it's everywhere and it goes viral and there's this whole word as a career I'm an influencer. Are you really? Who are you influencing?
Speaker 3:The difference is in our generation. Influencers were like Franz Zappa, miles Davis, bruce Springsteen, people. They created something you know. They were known for being a great philosopher, bob Dylan was an influencer.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Bob Dylan was an influencer, you know, but it's crazy where we got so if someone cannot do anything, anything, cannot think, cannot write, cannot paint, yeah, yeah, an influencer. Why? Because I know nothing, I'm lack of any education and I'm an influencer. Yeah, there's something ran totally wrong.
Speaker 4:There's something very, very deeply flawed when this, when we get to that point, there's something going on. Devil's Encyclopedia sums it up.
Speaker 1:You guys are fixing to get me to go down a rabbit hole. I don't want to go down. Just stop right now, because I agree with you that social media is a necessary evil for guys like us. Right, we have a podcast, we have a show, we have we're musicians, we have a a new album out. It's a necessary evil. We have to be there to be relevant. But some of this other horse shit that we hear and you call it influencers, like I would agree with you, tony. What are you influencing? You haven't influenced me in one bit, like you haven't even. You haven't even scratched the fucking surface of influencing me right, yeah, but that's again
Speaker 4:that's a whole another conversation then yeah, and it is the rabbit hole, just like politics is a rabbit hole. I don't want to go there and uh, especially american politics, especially this year, and I won't, I won't go there, but uh, yeah, right, let me explain to you.
Speaker 3:In this song we are pointing out another aspect of that social media thing. That's why it's the devil that my generation or our generation put this thing around. When we just met a guy who was just representing an oppositional opinion about anything music, poetry, paintings, politics, love it was not our enemy, it was just oppositional opinion about anything music, poetry, paintings, politics, you know love Then it was not our enemy, it was just the guy who had a different opinion. Of course we had a beer and we discussed a little bit, you know, and it was middle of the society. It was absolutely fine that you were just voting for someone else. And then you're listening to different music, you wear different clothes, everything was fine.
Speaker 3:Today they are enemies, you know, because they're different. This is the main point. It's not even political, I mean, it's just in general, if you follow the different philosophies. So our basic human understanding of freedom. So that's why I became a refugee, that's why I almost got killed as I was 22, because I crossed the tunnel underneath of the Iron Curtain and all of a sudden it's that freedom that we can.
Speaker 3:Hey, we are different. How wonderful the original American dream of being an individual freedom and being an individual way of life and all of a sudden we have to be uniform, influencer, coming up to tell you and this song is about that Because all of a sudden wars are possible again. I thought we all thought that after the Vietnam War we just got rid of that idea. You know that the solution is the war, and the boys are on the ground again somewhere in the world Iran. So what I'm trying to say, this song was written by life. Yeah, actually, you know, because we had to say something and get that absolutely crazy devil's way of creating this division in the world and division in our societies, and this ends up in wars again.
Speaker 1:Well, everybody is so fanatical about their beliefs and I don't know when this happened. I fell asleep one night and I woke up and this was a thing Like you see, so much political divide and okay, okay, so we don't agree with one another. Isn't that our prerogative, to not agree with one another? Why did I just yeah, it's a whole nother conversation in and of itself and it's just, it's out of hand like yeah, I don't know again. Well, if we jump back to the latest release, I I think there were what three, was it three? Singles that have been released off of this new record.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we just, you know yeah, we Stay. Loud Blood in the Water and yeah three.
Speaker 1:But the big quit. And then what was the other? We Stay Loud. That was the last one, right, yeah, the third one, okay.
Speaker 3:We Stay Loud is that was the last one, right? Yeah, the third one. Okay, we Stay Loud is the last one. Yeah, actually, we started with Devils and then Blood in the Water, then Big Quit and now we Stay Loud, yeah.
Speaker 1:Leslie, this was a concept album. I was reading that this was a kind of a concept album for you guys. Am I correct there?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I mean Because we've had the feeling that, for personal reasons and for social reasons, we have to raise our voice musically, For humanity, in a way, back to normal, To bridge over this division, this divide what you were pointing out in your statement that's, that's what it hurts us, you know. So let let's talk and let's discuss, let's let's enjoy to being different, you know, and that's why we're choosing that a memory of our future as a title, because we would like to just take the perspective of, from our kids or grandkids or one day, how they look at what have we done right now? I mean how we were treating the earth and how we were treating society, how we were treating each other. This is what it's all about.
Speaker 4:And so, Randy, and what's the alternative? 10 pop songs, I mean we're getting on a little bit. You know we're not, we're still a boy band, but we're like an older boy band and uh, the alternative would would be, you know, just a collection of some tunes and yeah, sure, anybody can do that, any everybody has done that and so very definitely got a concept behind it. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:In the simplest definition of concept albums for the listeners that are totally. Again, I go back to just the listeners of music. They're not into the techie stuff, the behind the scenes, any of the stuff that you know us guys are into, right, yeah, we think back to the 80s when Styx put out Kill Roy was here, mr Roboto. Right, that was a whole 80s when Styx put out Kill Roy was here, mr Roboto right, that was a whole concept album for Styx.
Speaker 4:Define a concept album Something that has a through line, just like a book, like a novel, something where every song is a piece to put. It doesn't have to be thematically that it ends up in a conclusion to reach a conclusion. It's not a novel. It doesn't have to be thematically that it ends up in a conclusion to reach a conclusion. It's not a novel. It doesn't have to have an end. But this through line, through each piece, each work, reflects the same attitudes. Okay, and that also counts as a concept album.
Speaker 4:My Planet P album, pink World, was a cult concept album. Now, that was more like a novel. It had a beginning and it had an end, but a concept this is, as I mentioned a minute ago. It could be 10 songs about 10 different things and just an album, just a record. Sure, this is not. This has got, I would have to say, political through line in, as unfashionable as that probably is. You know, these days, like I said, we're a little bit older as a boy band and we don't care, so yeah, Well, you guys spoke of this.
Speaker 1:No, that's, that's great. I mean technically, there's an underlying theme to the record, right? I mean, at the end of the day, yeah, is the songwriting a democracy? Do you think of songwriting of? I'll spread this wealth across the band and be totally open to their ideas, or are all of the lyrics your brainchild and then the rest of the band form something around the lyrics? Tell me how you guys write generally.
Speaker 3:I mean generally, maybe the basic idea of everything that's sourced with my ideas.
Speaker 4:Yeah, they start with you, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but you have to imagine the procedure of writing songs and producing in a way that I start, you know, I have an idea, I have a vision and I'm so fortunate to have you know, guys like Tony and the whole band and everybody around me, that all of a sudden this whole thing gets a really painting, a very colorful painting. But I have also a very lucky situation in terms of that. Just because two of us are right on this show, tony and myself say, for instance, when we just lay down the details, the production, so the recording, the vocals, or going through the lyrics, or saying now let's do it in 16, and let's rethink maybe a need beneath his 16 about, uh, hammond solo and and 16 by trumpet and break in the middle and let's take out the bass here totally and whatever you know. I mean I don't want to be going to nerdy details now of the production, but I I have the fortune that everybody and it goes for everybody say hey, leslie, what about if you would just do this or you would that, that and adapt a lot of it? But a lot of it, I'm not adapting it. I'll give you a perfect song from our previous record, utopia for Realists.
Speaker 3:There was a song called the Old Rebels. So I recorded a 32-track, 32-bar guitar solo by Mike Stern. Tony comes and says Leslie, it's not really rocking for me, so it's a bit too beboppy, this solo. And I said thanks, you know, I kept on thinking of it, but I was not replacing that solo of Mike's shirt but I orchestrated it. So what I'm trying to point out, I'm such a privileged guy because Tony came up and he was saying that it's such a rock song and it's a rock guitar solo. Okay, and I said I think I understand what he means, but I translate it in a different way. So I came back to Tony a couple of big stages, I said how about this? Now to that solo, you know, and he was taking me out. I said hey, wow, because you know it was orchestrated with synthesizers, with a little saxophone, with a bit of string. And then all of a sudden, this kind of bebop solo, but was not painting the rock picture for Tony and it was his input that he was criticizing. But I give him another answer, as he was expecting to do. Same goes for we Stay Loud.
Speaker 3:On this record. It is a bass solo, which you were not recognized as a bass solo by Richard Bonin. You were recognized as an instrumental piece, but it's actually an improvisation as a solo in classic terms of playing a solo, and all of a sudden turns out to be a kind of rock statement, a bass solo, and in today's radio landscape it's total crazy. So what I'm trying to say, I'm so fortunate, so privileged, that all these iconic legends are following this craziness that I'm coming up with. So, thank you. Actually, what I can say on that?
Speaker 4:Yeah, what you did on Old Rebels on Utopia album. You reorchestrated it and it wasn't any kind of cliche anymore. I thought it sounded. The backing track was cliche rock with a bebop solo. It didn't fit. And then two weeks later when I came back, it was completely newly orchestrated. There was odd instruments, maybe a sitar, maybe, uh, accordion, accordion, accordion, trumpets, stuff like that. Completely, completely like rethought. Yeah, the way to the best way to feature mike's solo. And it'd take a lot of balls to erase Mike Stern. He's one of the big guys, you know. You want to feature him anytime you can.
Speaker 1:Well, you mentioned the sitar and I guess in music I don't know if this is a fair comment, but us rocker guys here in the United States we don't. We don't hear much of the sitar here and it just made me think who was the? Who was the big sitar guy? Was it Ravi Ravi?
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, right, and his son Ravioli.
Speaker 1:OK, no good stuff and listen.
Speaker 1:I had I had this wonderful group on my show from Australia and they're continuously like I think it's every Friday. They record new cover material and they bring in specific artists to the group to record based on the song that they're recording that week. Right when I spoke to condello he's the bass player for the group and the founder of a group called hindley street country club out of adelaide, australia he referred to hindley street country club as a a project, right, and this is where musicians kind of there's this rotating or this, this, yeah, this rotating door of artists that come in that serve the song the best right, um, absolutely less. And this is for you, tony or leslie, do you and you guys have had a lot of musicians in and out of of mandoki soulmates over the years. Is this? Do you consider this more of a project or do you think of this as a band?
Speaker 3:before we get there, something uh is in your state. There's a misunderstanding. No one ever went out of the van, uh, so of course that makes makes sense. Tony was tragically mentioning that we lost, you know, like Michael Brecker, like to Bailey, we lost Greg Lake of Amazon Lake and Palmer, we lost Jack Booth. This is one tragical. You know the gang who is playing now with Jimi Hendrix, you know. So this is one part of what we have lost and the other part what we lost through aging and really ill, like Chris Thompson retired simply because he had horrible voice problems and he just retired and for a reason.
Speaker 3:But I really, actually I have great respect from all of us that he said okay, guys, I have these difficulties, I'm not sounding like, said okay, guys, I have these difficulties, I'm not sounding like. I wish I was sound and I'm retired. Bobby is so ill that you know he cannot go on stage anymore. He cannot do it. He doesn't even know. You know Tony was so lovely, I mean he proved his humanity again, like so many cases. We took Bobby to the last tour not this time, but you know, on his last tour with us and he was very ill and sometimes he didn't know where he is, but we give him the respect that you know is a founding member. So I just was trying to say that no one went out of this band ever Of course, that makes sense.
Speaker 4:You only leave soulmates in a box.
Speaker 1:It's like the Roach Motel you can check in, but you can't check out right Once you're in, you're in.
Speaker 4:It's like a musical commune, a musical collective. It's really exciting when we get new talent, new kids like Richard.
Speaker 3:Corey Henry. Yeah, corey Henry. Or you know, how was Richard Bonner coming into the band? You know, because we were speaking about it, that no one went out. But how are you all coming in? You know, actually, we were at the funeral of Jack Bruce in London and Eric Clapton and myself we spoke with the family and we had, of course, a long, long night, late night. My mobile phone was just ringing and it was Quincy Jones and he said now you need a new bass player. And in four days we're going to see each other in New York and I'm going to introduce you a new bass player who's going to be Richard Bonner. And that's how I got to know Richard. And then they became our bass player and then he came up with Corey Henry.
Speaker 3:So this is, you know, one thing goes to the other and it's wonderful. You know, one thing goes to the other and it's wonderful and it was a great connection. So nowhere ever left. And, like, I'll give you another example, john Hallibull, the founding member of Supertrap, has been with us since about 25 years and we have really a great horn section.
Speaker 3:He came in as Michael Bragg died and we were in and the horn section. He came in as Michael Bracker died and we were in and the horn section was incredible with Bill Evans and Randy Bracker. And as he came in one day he said Leslie, you know why may I can take to the next recording or to the next shows a wonderful singer and keyboard player and guitar player, justin Zimmer. Of course you're very welcome, and Justin is just a wonderful musician, really a wonderful player and a wonderful guy. And all of a sudden we had the younger Kira Wagen, or even my daughter, julia, you know she just joined us and she's just 30. So, and Corey was so young that you know we celebrated his 30th birthday actually in Paris, in the Olympia. So that's to give you an impression.
Speaker 1:Sure, how do you come up with the artists that will play in this group? Where does that thought process come from? If you need a bass player, is it just a favorite of yours and you go out and find this person? Or how do some of these players fall into your lineup?
Speaker 3:Everything is extremely natural. Everything is extremely natural like when very first time I have heard Chaka Khan in my life, and then I loved the bass player. And Chaka, yeah, and the bass player was Anthony Jackson, yeah. So I called up Anthony Jackson and introduced myself, and and then he he said, hey boy, why don't we go to New York and come over? And then I met him in a session and he just said, well, there's a drum kit out there, go out and play. And he enjoyed it. And then he was taking me to his apartment in New York. And then he was taking me to his apartment in New York and I had seen there the largest vinyl collection of Bela Bartok's drink waters. And I said what I mean, you know, and Anthony is an extremely political person as we met, the first thing he asked what have you done during the 56th revolution against the Russians? I mean, he knew, of course, I was three years old, so he wanted to know on which side my parents were. So that was the first question. Yeah, wow.
Speaker 3:And what an educated person. And he knew more about Billa Bartok than anyone else I ever met in the rock and roll industry, you know. And he was an expert of Bela Bartok. And later on, as I actually, ian Anderson introduced me to Greg Lake. And then I said to Greg, when he came up again, together with John Lord, they both came up with about Hungarian pictures of Bilabardo, gondolas and telling the story that they wanted to work on the Amazon Lake and Palmer on the pictures of an exhibition.
Speaker 3:The original idea was the Hungarian pictures, but they couldn't get the rights. So, being born Hungarian, what about, you know, unless the UMA can get the rights, I couldn't get it either. So it took years until we could touch that wonderful piece of music. But while we were speaking, you know, of course, you know Greg was asking about, you know, the bass players. You know Jack Bruce and Victor Bailey and Anthony Jackson. And then all of a sudden they met, you know, and Greg was playing acoustic guitar and Anthony was playing bass. And I mean, randy, it was so wonderful as they went into Bela Bartók as a first rock musician type of thing. Yeah, and it was wonderful, two experts on that. So you know, it's just one came up Like it was one of the most funniest moments of my life, like we did the 50 years of rock shows, and I got a call from Peter Franklin and Peter Franklin was saying you know, you are a German guy. He didn't know that I'm Hungarian.
Speaker 2:so I said you are way over there in.
Speaker 3:Europe. I just want to tell you that I'm a real guitar player. I'm just not a singer who has a guitar in hand, I'm a guitar guitar player. I'm just not a singer who has a guitar in hand, I'm a guitar player. I said, of course I know this. But now let's see, you must understand this. When we play in this big show about Tamil and people were watching us on TV, then you must understand that I want to play the guitar solos because I'm a guitar player actually. So it was really kind of funny because I was not thinking of that I should give him the solos, but I gave him the solos.
Speaker 3:By the way, that show I was really extra. It was Greg Lake on acoustic guitar, it was Peter Frandon on electric guitar, it was Manfred Melancholy, desire Joe Lloyd on Hammond, jack Boozer on bass, ian Anderson on flute, chris Thompson on vocal, bobby Kimball on vocal, dave Klint Thomas on vocal. Wow, it was kind of in the head of the TV station because it was Saturday night prime time and it was the largest, biggest TV network in Germany. So and the boss of the TV network was kind of afraid you know it's kind of work, you know Leslie's so crazy to do it? And he said do we need maybe one more superstar for celebrating 50 years of rock? And I said no, no, we are fine, but, leslie, maybe we need one more really spicing it up, you know, like madonna or bruce springsteen or something. So, no, no, no, I'm absolutely fine, you know, you know. And then he was just I've just repeated that question about three or four times and I said okay, noah, I have an idea. Let's's invite Mihail Sergeyevich Gorbachev.
Speaker 3:He said what I said look, imagine this guy was bringing down the Berlin Wall and he went to America and he realized that he has to create peace and the wall and the hierarchical must come down. Imagine he goes on stage, 12 million people are watching this, and he's saying that rock music was so meaningful in Eastern Europe, american rock was so meaningful, it drove down the wall. And he said you must be a little crazy. So I found a way to call Lea Gabachar and he came to the show and he said exactly that, that we want rock music.
Speaker 3:And then he said and it was really legendary he said you know, in a dictatorship it was in a civil union where you control rock music, because rock music is kind of the soundtrack of the enemy. Rock music is the soundtrack of individual freedom, and the most dangerous music is prog rock, because prog rock is the kind of music of the students, you know, the kind of intellectual class, and so it was absolutely forbidden Anything that was any close to jazz or prog rock. It was absolutely forbidden. And then he said, as I was trying to prove that perestroika and glasnost is really substantially true, then I asked the Russian state-owned record company Melodia in the Soviet Union to buy the license for one million Chertotal album to prove to the Russian students yes, it's Chertotal allowed now, so we are free. So I just give you, randy, this example how much meaning. Wait a minute.
Speaker 4:Gorbachev bought a million Tal albums to give away to the Soviet Union. That's fantastic. I could have sold them a couple myself.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just to prove that prograt is legal now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was illegal for decades Of course. They said Schlager music is fine because it's opium for the people, but not prograt.
Speaker 4:Schlager is a German word for easy listening Elevator music.
Speaker 1:Wow, what a story.
Speaker 3:You know. So imagine, then I brought together Gorbachev and Ian Anderson on that show. So what kind of magic it was. Because for you, english and British and Americans, you don't really check that I'm sorry to say this, but but because you are so happy for granted, taken from granted, that freedom is sort of is coming from, you know, and you don't have to fight for it, that that you don't really get that how much meaning for American and British music was behind the Iron Curtain. Sure, sure I can see that.
Speaker 3:No record stores, you know, only the radio stations Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, you know, and this was just disturbed by the Russians so it was going away, coming back, I guess, you know, and I had a, and coming back, I guess, and I had a lousy. I was a king because I had a lousy tape machine, a monotape machine. It was a plate on a stereo but only one speaker, and you know how the brand was the band called Tesla, the Czech scientists. There was a Czech monotep machine and I had a seventh generation monotep copy of a Jethro Tull album and I was the king. You know, you guys were taking out the ghost as you were a teenager, and the ghost came to me because I had a seventh generation monotep copy of Jethro Tull. That's great, the one eyed man, because I had a seventh-generation model deep copy of Centertown.
Speaker 4:That's great. The one-eyed man in the land of the blind.
Speaker 1:That's it. That's it. Yeah. Well, if you ever need any other great quality, world-class guitarist, Leslie, and you want to get rid of some of those B-grade guys like Frampton and those guys, hey, I'm your guy. Call me Leslie, I'll come play some cowboy chords for you. How's that?
Speaker 4:Empire music I know right.
Speaker 1:Well, tony, you were on my show a year and a half ago back in.
Speaker 2:January of 23.
Speaker 1:And it seems like it was like six months ago or so. Like where does time go, man? I think the older we get, the quicker the clock spins. I don't know.
Speaker 4:I don't know what happens there. That's completely true. That's completely true. I mean, I turn around twice and I'm a grandfather, I turn around twice more and she's in the second grade. I mean, jesus, I know when does it turn around twice?
Speaker 1:more and she's in the second grade. I mean, jesus, I know where to go. Yeah, I know it well, there there's been, uh, so many great musicians that have been a part of mandoki soulmates over the years. You know you spoke of some of them, you guys spoke of some of them earlier john hellwell, you know super tramp, ian anderson of jethro tull, you, you know there's been Robin Gibb from the BGs, bobby Kimball and Luke from Toto. You know the list kind of goes on and on and on, and of course yourself, tony of Rainbow and Planet P fame. But what was the real draw for you to be a part of the group? What drew you in?
Speaker 4:I'll tell you in a sentence I could do whatever I wanted to do. I've been in some. I've played with Stadium X playing for 60,000 people, and everything was as easy as a guest star. It wasn't in the band and everything's so regulated down to the. I mean the set list is this and you play the same part, and I mean you might as well wash cars for a living or play in a symphony orchestra. That's the same way. You don't have to be that same kind of discipline. I'm all about. I'm a free spirit and I never in my life have ever played anything twice the same way. I'm incapable of it, I don't want to do it. I think it's boring, I think that's robot music and, uh, that's the great, the, the, the, the most attractive uh aspect of of soulmates, because anything goes. Sure you wouldn't believe the wild shit, it's spontaneous, right, spontaneous it's 90 improvisation.
Speaker 4:I mean there's a song form. Of course we sing them, sure, but you know the pieces can get long live and uh, as soon as we got sorted out who plays with who and what and everything, and that's why we rehearse, you know who does the solos, depending on who's on board for that appearance. We're going to rehearse in August for two huge shows here on the continent and I just look forward to it as being like a vacation. You know it's the opposite of work, not that I've ever worked a day in my life, but you know what I mean. It's the opposite of work. Not that I've ever worked a day in my life, but this is, if you know what I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's the opposite of work.
Speaker 1:Sure Well, when you're, when you're playing with world-class musicians and you guys understand music you know if you're in a key, you can totally improvise and just open a song up. It doesn't have to be the same thing over and over again. It's whatever you're feeling that day, right, it's a new canvas every day.
Speaker 4:It's exactly right, and that's why jazz and the blues and rock are like anything goes. You know, I mean hell. I saw the who Smashed Drum kits. I saw Richie blow up his Marshalls at the California Jam about six months before I met him, and that's pretty much. I come down on that side of the fence. You know, sure sure. No rules, no rules, anything goes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that's a great mentality to have become a world class or a world renowned musician like you are. Uh, are. Are you guys ever starstruck with surrounding talent? You know you're in mandoki, soulmates. Do you ever like wake up and say holy shit?
Speaker 4:I'm playing with this guy and that guy. I don't wake up and say I just hear him do something absolutely amazing and I'm completely starstruck. Sure, I mean Demi Ola, blow your mind, sometimes he's a Richard Boner, Corey Henry. I mean, yeah, I'm starstruck the whole time. You know it puts. I tell you what, I tell you what it does. It puts me on my A game. You, Of course, yeah.
Speaker 1:You don't want to be the weakest link, right? I mean, in a star-studded group like that, you don't want to be the weakest link, for sure I can see that.
Speaker 4:Yeah Well, if I put you, tony, if I put you on the spot and ask you who is Leslie Mandoki, how would you answer me? Well, he's a communist. No, oh, he's a communist. No, oh, he's sitting here, I'm leaving okay.
Speaker 4:He's my really, really, really good friend and I know him really really well and he's all hard. That's really what it is. And everything he does, what you see, is what you get. That's Leslie Mandoghi. He's a very, very he's a hard guy and you know this. We love each other. That's a. That's how I see him. You know, not even not, not not like a brother, cause I have a brother and he's completely different and he's completely different. But this is my brother from another, not another mother, but another completely different culture, completely different culture. Nothing culturally in common with Leslie. As a West Coast San Joaquin Valley boy and a refugee from Budapest, yeah, and, but that's who Leslie is. He's the guy with theapest. Yeah, but that's who Leslie is. He's the guy with the big heart, yeah.
Speaker 1:Leslie, and I didn't even think about spinning that same question around to you and ask you who is Tony Carey to you?
Speaker 3:Well, this is a simple answer. In our industry we have a very, very bad habit that we call too many people friends who are actually just, you know, fellows, tony is a friend in that true sense, you know, yeah, and you can share with him, you know, and that he's a brilliant music. We all know that he's great in everything and musically and really brilliant singing Right, any, any, any on all these territories he's fabulous. But, uh, but it's you know. But I'm trying to say always to younger kids that, coming along, we are all talented, try to be a character, a right character, and he is one of those Honest, faithful, trustful. He's doing what he's saying and saying what he's doing. And that makes a lot of huge difference. Because in every niche industry you have a lot of crazy difference because, um, you know, in every, in each industry, a lot of crazy guys that don't stick to the road, but they, uh, but, um, in our industry we have, our industry invites those guys.
Speaker 4:They're all phonies, they're all fake in this business. I mean it's, you know, it's uh, it's like high fashion, it's like this backbiting. I can't, I don't even know what to compare the music industry to, but there are a lot of fakes out there. I tell you what.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I've said it many times, I'm glad that I don't make a living in it. I have something else that pays my mortgage and it's just, it's a strangest industry to be in, how, like what you just said, it's it's cutthroat. It's like everybody's trying to get ahead and and make a bigger name for themselves and yeah, I think you know, you guys your chances of succeeding are so small.
Speaker 4:They will always have been. It's never been any different. I mean, every year, the 10 000 prettiest girls from the 10 000 high schools go to hollywood because they're gorgeous and they have some talent, and well they're. How often does a new movie star come up? Every couple years, yeah, and, and they're all. Every waitress in in los angeles and in west hollywood. Every waitress is it's a West Hollywood. Every waitress is a movie star. Every cab driver is a leading man, and that's how cutthroat it is. And you know one or two of each crop each year A dime, a dozen right.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and one or two will turn out to end up to have a career. I agree.
Speaker 4:And I never worked a day in my life. I mean that, that's not in jest, I mean that, sure, and I'm really really, really fortunate because I wouldn't my kid, especially since streaming came in and since there's so many bands trying, uh competing for gigs, you know to, to pay mortgages and things. If my kid wanted to be a, a musician, I'd make I don't know that well if you have to do it, but I wish you get that law degree, you know yeah, well, you know, thank goodness, you know.
Speaker 1:You say you've never worked a day in your life and not many people can say that thank god for that Lowry organ back in the day, right yeah, yeah, yeah, you bet yeah.
Speaker 4:Like I tell you, I'm blown by the wind, and the wind is always coming from a fair weather direction. I don't know what it is, I've just been blessed.
Speaker 1:That's awesome it's nice to hear you guys speak of one another and it's, I think, the beautiful thing here and I guess I was a little more privy to it recently where I have a friend locally here that has become kind of a a big name in Europe.
Speaker 1:He goes over eight months of the year and has has grown this big following over in France and recently some of the musicians came here and we all went into the studio to Sugar Hill Studios, who you know. Sugar Hill is one of the oldest recording studios in America and one of the guys, the bass player, was from the Netherlands, the drummer was from France and they call the group the beautiful things, because it's just beautiful people that are coming together and making music and when and when you and Leslie spoke of one another, the beautiful thing that I see there with you guys and with with Zach Perry and the beautiful things is the cultural bridging of the chasm. Right, like you're totally, you know, being American born, you're totally different culturally than Leslie and then he of you, and to see you guys come together as a brotherhood, I think that's special and it's always been said that music is that, I guess, bridging chasm, so to speak.
Speaker 4:That's Leslie's catchword Music is the greatest unifier. 100%. I mean that was not this album, but the last album. That was the buzzword, the promo, the whole promotion was music is the greatest unifier.
Speaker 1:Well, if you think about it, you know you guys are on stage, you've got 10 people on stage, or three people, or 30 people, and it doesn't matter what language you speak. If you even speak English, our native tongue, once you start playing. It's a universal language, it's all the same. It never changes from one you know one dialect to the next, or from one culture to the next.
Speaker 4:It's always the same always. And you'd be, and you'd be surprised. I mean that knocked me out, that the garbage off and and a tall record. I mean you know, yeah, you wouldn't, you wouldn't think of that, you know you wouldn't think of that for sure leslie talk to me about shows.
Speaker 1:Is there some type of tour, a series of shows coming up that you guys will do to support the latest LP?
Speaker 3:Well, actually we are playing a lot in Europe and we are just negotiating for an American tour next year and we'll see and we'll see. You know it's very complex to get this big production on the road in the States because, you know, we have 34,000 people when they play in the summer here and so we actually finally this might be a kind of newcomer in the United States because it's actually our first release at all after three decades so but we are working on it and we're talking, you know, negotiating, and people are taking care of that, and I really we played just once. We were invited by the Grammy organization and we played in the Beacon Theater and then it was wonderful. You know, it was pretty fast sold out and then all the reviews were fantastic, so I was very pleased about it. So the bottom line is that we don't have solid dates for what we could, you know, tell you right now, but they are working.
Speaker 1:Well, you're almost like a mind reader, because I was going to ask you if you guys were planning anything in the United States, because I think that would be a real treat for us folks over here to see such an international group of artists come together like that. That would be a really cool treat and Tony, your words are God's ear.
Speaker 4:I mean it's tough to get together, it's a tough organization logistically and to get somebody to believe in it. Maybe the album's strong enough to really convince somebody to go out on a limb Because it is a limb. We have 17 people on stage sometimes. That's not cheap. Even though I work for free, that's not cheap.
Speaker 1:Right, no, I get it, I totally get it. You know, and I always say, if, if I have one more listener, uh, if I can put your music in one more set of ears than you had before you talked to me. That's kind of the goal of of my show and having you guys on my platform. You know, I I like to say that I'm the show's now heard in 80 countries and uh and I and I love the fact that people here get to hear new music.
Speaker 1:You know bands from norway and all over the world. You know germany that they may never even take the time to listen to here because it's not as in your face. Mandoki soulmates if you ask 10 people on the streets here, hey, have you heard of Mandoki soulmates? How many people like here in Houston, texas, will have heard of you guys? I don't know the answer to that question, but if this show can be that platform to put it in more ears, then my job is done.
Speaker 4:One person sets the bar a little low. Let's go for five.
Speaker 1:Let's go for five.
Speaker 4:Let's go for five, that's right people, who are five people, to know who we are by the by the time. There you go.
Speaker 1:Well, we'll do everything we'll do everything in our power to make it more than five, but absolutely raise the bar raise 100 tony. When was the last time that you came to the uS? When was the last time you were?
Speaker 4:here, 2020. 2020. I went to Ojai, california, and worked with some genius musicians and with Jesse Siebenberg, who's now singing with us and playing guitar from Supertramp our newest addition and he invited me to Ojai and I did eight bottom tracks in three studio days of the studio they have there. To Ojai, and I did eight bottom tracks in three studio days at the studio they have there. Had a great time bombing around with my brother. We had a car and I was back in California. I released actually two. I did a cover of Woody Guthrie's Deportee Check that out. It's on Spotify. That's terrific. It's a terrific cover. But that's you know. That's right and it's right before, in fact, I got COVID in the airport coming home, and that was about two months before COVID was a word you know, as he was going through the airports Of course.
Speaker 4:And I came home and had the worst cough and COVID for sure, sure, and nobody knew what it was. And then by March of that year, three months later, of course, it was a pandemic, and so that was the last time I was there.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I just had a thought. You know we spoke of so many amazing artists that have contributed to the success of Mandoki Soulmates, but just taking a second to mention you again, you know you've recorded so much great music over the years, from the days of why Me to A Fine Fine Day, and you know it was this record right here. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right that that kind of did it for me, this the solo effort that you did. Thank you for sending that signed copy of that. But what a great record. Lucky us is, man, I still. I still go back to that as one of my favorites of all times, and I've, I've, I've done a lot of intaking of music in my days, probably like you have. You know we've listened to everything under the sun and that's a great record. So that's the hardest record.
Speaker 4:It's the hardest record I ever made. Yeah, it started off with bass, drums, guitar, choir, saxophones to the kitchen sink church bells and ended up with a piano and some some light orchestration and it took me five years to make and there is not a false word on that. The lyrics are I accomplished. What I wanted to do was basically write my about my childhood and and my parents and and stuff like that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, thank you because I yeah, I also consider that it's. It's not a rock record at all. No, it's not any kind of prog or rock. There's no drums on it. Yeah, I consider that a real statement of a record. I'm glad you like it no, I, I love it.
Speaker 1:in fact, I stumbled across the video on youtube of I think it was um hallelujah and it's I. There's, you know, you see a lot of acoustic guitars in the back and there's something amazing to me as an artist when a musician is just the instrument and the voice, it's stripped down, it's raw. There's no fabrication of anything, it's the heart coming out through. You know, either the piano or the guitar or whatever you're playing.
Speaker 4:There was a Steinway Model D, nine-foot Steinway in an old German studio here with classic mic locker. They had this is nerdy again, but they had Norman mics from like almost from World War Two, I mean the ancient two mics that still work and no overdubs, as I mean, it was just piano and voice and a cameraman and of course I did every. I had to do them a couple times, you know, which wasn't just one thing, but I got three videos in one afternoon until you know. Okay, I'm tired, but it was a hell of an experience.
Speaker 1:Well, all lovely stuff.
Speaker 4:And the inside cover of that album in the gatefold. That's Louie.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 4:That's my dog on that Steinway.
Speaker 1:And then you have Marion in there as well, correct Marion's?
Speaker 4:always in there, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, a lovely batch of tunes, for sure, that are very touching. Thank you, man. Yeah, for sure, leslie. How did the listeners go about finding the band on social media?
Speaker 3:Oh, um, very simple. You write the handwritten letter to a? Uh postbox, uh, now wait.
Speaker 1:You're now wait a minute. Wait a minute. Now you sound like Tony. Tony doesn't even have a smartphone, yet Tony still writes letters and puts them in the mail. Right, I do. Here we go.
Speaker 3:So you just very simple Mandoki, m-e-n-d-o-k-i Soulmates and you find us everywhere. So you find us in America, amazon and all this, you know, YouTube.
Speaker 4:Lots of stuff on YouTube. There's entire shows like long shows on YouTube. There's this entire uh shows like long shows on on YouTube. Really well filmed. They're really well mixed in and post-production Excellent.
Speaker 1:I've, I've seen, I've seen many of them, since we talked about having Leslie on the show, and I think there was one where you guys were doing smoke on the water, which was uh, which was uh, lovely, lovely. Love that man, you know. Yeah, yeah, some, some good stuff.
Speaker 4:I think I still had. I think I might even still had, uh, a different color hair in that particular one now that you brought it up, you did. Yeah, as a matter of fact, you did before before I brought the bought the fright wig, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's amazing. And you're only what? 50. 43. Yeah, 43. Yeah exactly. Leslie, what about? What about personal social media sites for you? Is there any that you wanted to mention for yourself, specifically, not the band, but yourself?
Speaker 3:No, I don't have anything else in the Madugi so much. This is my life so so I'm sharing on that social media everything that we're doing and can have a real insight looking inside of the hobby cooking. So if you look at YouTube and Facebook especially Facebook we are are kind of active and you find us everywhere.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right. And Tony, how do listeners go about finding you and all things related to Tony Carey.
Speaker 4:Well, spotify, youtube there's about a thousand of my songs on YouTube or Amazon or Amazon music, amazon Prime music there's, I think, 500 songs. I mean I've. You know I've published a lot, a lot, a lot of songs and like 40 albums, you know, worth and over the decades, and I got my own channel on Spotify. You know, if you, if you put my name into Spotify, yes, and otherwise I don't know. Wikipedia, yeah, and don't believe a word. Don't believe your word. I hate Wikipedia. I tried to change it, I tried to self edit it. They wouldn't let me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, I'm living proof of that. I went out and read Wikipedia and all these things and they weren't half. Half of the stuff out there wasn't even right. So here we are and I get set correct. So good stuff there. Well, I want to thank both of you guys so much for joining me today. It's, it's been lovely. Leslie, thanks for taking the time to share the story of Mandoki Soulmates with my global listeners. You're certainly a revered musician and producer and I look forward to hearing more from you guys in the very near future. Thanks, so much, Randy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and Tony, thanks again for coming back on the show. I know you didn't have to do that. I thought you might have been done with me the first time, but it's good to see you back again, man, and thanks for being a friend and a great pen pal over the last year and a half. Thanks again, I hope. I hope Marion and the family are well and I wish you guys nothing but the best in the future. I I asked the listeners to like, share and subscribe to the podcast on Facebook at Backstage Pass Radio Podcast, on Instagram at Backstage Pass Radio and on the website at Backstage Pass Radio dot com. You guys remember to take care of each other and yourselves and we'll see you right back here on the next episode of Backstage Pass Radio.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much for joining us. We hope you enjoyed today's episode of Backstage Pass Radio. Thanks so much for joining us. We hope you enjoyed today's episode of Backstage Pass Radio. Make sure to follow Randy on Facebook and Instagram at RandyHulseyMusic, and on Twitter at RHulseyMusic. Also, make sure to like, subscribe and turn on alerts for upcoming podcasts. If you enjoyed the podcast, make sure to share the link with a friend and tell them Backstage Pass Radio is the best show on the web for everything music. We'll see you next time right here on Backstage Pass Radio.
